Regina
by Elspeth.Davidson
Summary: Oneshot Susan 'redemptive fic' but perhaps not in the standard vein. The 'question of Susan' has always intrigued, but not bothered me, and this fic is based on a particular phrase I once heard. Dedicated to a secondborn sister.


Queen Susan.

She hated that name. Hated it, hated it, hated it from the depths of her soul; hated it with a piercing bitterness that railed against every tragedy her young life had seen.

This evening had brought it all to a head - the evening that was to be her greatest triumph yet. It had been the realization of a long-cherished dream: glittering chandeliers dripping with crystal galaxies; elegant silks and satins swirling in fantastical aurorae; constellations of gems scintillating at the throats and in the hair of Hollywood's brightest novae. And all in honor of Susan Pevensie, the enthralling actress whose cometuous flight to success had been unforeseen.

They were there to do homage to her. Greetings, autographs, photographs, and dances all drifted by, blurred gently together by a flow of the finest wines and champagnes. "To Susan Pevensie, queen of the silver screen!" toasted a recent colleague, and the cry was taken up universally.

"Queen Susan!"

But she wasn't one of them.

The awareness crept gradually through her alcoholic, adrenelinic buzz, swelling to a disillusioned heartcry as she circulated among the guests. Yes, they talked with her, laughed with her, as opportunity arose; but they went back to their cliques and stayed there, the women's glances especially revealing their opinion of this stunning usurpatrix. Those men that chose to attend her were the finest court on the face of the earth, but whose pleasure did they seek? Their faces merged into one, which flashed its mocking leer wherever she turned.

And so this frustration simmered behind the mask of her perfect features, only leaking out in the sharp pressure of her footsteps as she escaped the stifling ballroom, sending for her private car and ignoring the chaffeur who had driven her limosine. The sports car growled in agitation as she flung herself inside, letting her anguish erupt as she floored the accelerator.

It had always been like this. Always, always, always, and the fact was not disputed by the fog that rolled up the hill road, swallowing her down its dank grey gullet. Sweat and tears beaded on her face as she slammed the car around the sweeping turns.

To be a queen was to be an actress. To be the most beautiful woman in one world, much less two, was to be a slave. To be Queen Susan the Gentle was utter, utter hell.

She had thought she had escaped the pressure of playing a role, the expectation of being the perfect chatelaine, and the yoke of embodying all that was gorgeous and peaceful about Narnia. Yet here she was again, a sovereign in a cellulite world of make-believe.

But Narnia was real.

She knew that it was real; she had denied its existence to justify her denial of the Lion, whom she had loved. The Lion had forced her into Queen Susan the Gentle, and when he had again allowed her to enjoy the wonders of Narnia in her girlhood, had refused any chance of return. Her denial of him was the only appropriate response to his abandonment of her. She had found Him in England, but He had ripped away her family, her shelter and her security. So she had torn herself from Him, leaving England with only her formidable beauty and her thespian talents.

Susan Pevensie was a damn fine actress.

Damned is right, her mind whimpered, as she spun the wheel around. The vehicle hurtled through the tightening curves in the road, visible only in the headlights that cut through the disorienting opacity. When one was the queen of a rich nation, in whose name brave men sallied forth and for whose hand warriors expired in gouts of blood in tournament arenas, one had better be a gifted player. The stabbing pangs of guilt, the nights spent lying in the agony of waiting, the disgust for arrogant hypocrisy - these could not show. Decades of this, combined with a precise wielding of her exquisite appearance and a regality unmatched in five lands, had been the only weapons required in her conquest of Hollywood.

And now, as her car roared through the leaden night, she knew that she hated it. Hated movies, hated Narnia, hated beauty and jewels and crowns, and hated Queen Susan with a vehemence no demon could approach. To hell with it all. To hell with Hollywood, to hell with Narnia, and to hell with Queen Susan!

As if the car could not help but comply with her royal decree, it skidded on the next turn, tires squealing on the treacherous, fog-slick asphalt and masking her scream. It smashed with relentless finality into the vertical hillside.

The jolt of the crash sent Susan falling through infinity. Worlds snapped and spun around her head, setting a deep, primeval undercurrent that throbbed through her veins. She fell, nauseatingly far, dreading the end but detesting the present.

She landed on her knees in the grass, retching.

Grass. As she calmed, Susan lifted up dull eyes to her surroundings. Grass. Short grass and small, delicate flowers. A meadow, nestled in the embrace of mountains, which reared their majestic heads about this oasis of peace.

She didn't know where this was, but she knew whose it was.

He came to her across the grass, glowing with the light of a million stars coalesced into the great and terrible definition of Beauty.

Susan did not run. Running would not help; those razored claws would shred her back faster than thought. Willingly, she let her knees give way and buried her face in the grass, prostrate before her executioner. She would face the justice of the Lion with all the courage left to her.

She lay there for an eternity, unable to stop her limbs from trembling as his hot, moist, living breath burned the back of her neck. Susan. The word scorched through her body, comparing it with perfection, and left her feeling filthy, crazed, and unkempt; a pathogen in this place of wholesome goodness. Despite her pretenses to bravery, she gasped and cringed, longing to be away from him, but dying to be closer. For within herself she found echoes of a long-exorcised malady.

It was love. Beyond all rationality, beyond all bitterness, some miniscule part of Susan Pevensie still loved the Lion.

"Susan," he whispered, like a breeze playing in a sapling, and lowered his head to her neck in a Lion's kiss that washed over her; a cleansing, icy stream that purged the very marrow of her bones and left her pure, sobbing in uncontrollable joy and wonder at his feet.

How could he do this? How could she be with him? How could he love her so unreservedly, so passionately, so unreasonably? "Aslan!" she managed, the cry of an utterly broken woman, and the tears poured faster, sweeping the last of the paint and pretense from her face.

He loved her! He loved her, she who had scorned him, she who had blamed and rejected him! Her dry lips moved as her mingled grief and joy dampened his velvet paws, but no sound emerged. He was unfathomable, this Aslan of hers, and she could do nothing but marvel.

How long she lay at his feet she did not know. She could have stayed there in worship for an eternity; being unconditionally loved by him was enough. But the tears finally exhausted themselves, leaving her collected enough to raise her eyes to his. "Why, Aslan? Why? I don't deserve this."

He did not answer immediately, but looked back into her face with worlds of wisdom and compassion. Then she was on her feet, somehow, walking beside him and twining her hands in the living waterfall of his mane, and he was speaking in the voice that had sung the worlds into being. "My daughter, nobody deserves this."

"But I rejected you." She did not say it proudly; it came out in a whisper.

"I never released you from my paws. You sat with me through the long night, dear heart, and I do not see time as you do. Once a Queen in Narnia, always a Queen in Narnia."

The term held no poison now, not when he named her such, and she bowed her head. "I love you, Aslan." How could she not render what he asked of her?

"No, Susan. I love you. Come." He whipped around, and she felt rather than saw the laughter in his eyes. "Come! Further up and further in!" He bounded away and she darted after with a shriek of merriment, running in pursuit of the Lion, her limitless joy.

Thus she followed, further up and further in ... never noticing that the grass was not green, and that the world was colorless. For the Lion was all that mattered anymore.

A/n: This story was not originally intended to have the issue of eternal security addressed so prominently, but it was an integral part. Feel free to PM me if you want a clarification of my views, but I am not prepared to engage in pointless arguments for the sake of arguing, as it's a waste of time. This story was actually conceived as an illustration of a conjecture I heard a pastor make once: perhaps our 'rewards in heaven' affect our capacity for the enjoyment of it.


End file.
